Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/392

382 felicity of heaven, and sanctify my paternal and maternal progenitors, and the ancestry of my husband's father—that expiation may be made for my husband's offenses—thus I ascend my husband's pile. I call on you, ye guardians of the eight regions of the world, sun and moon, air, fire, ether, earth, and water, my own soul, Yama, [god of the dead,] day, night, and twilight! And thou, conscience, bear witness, I follow my husband's corpse on the funeral pile!”

She then moves around the pile three times more, while the Brahmins repeat the Muntras—the texts on burning already quoted, and others—and then ascends to the corpse, and either lies down by its side, or takes its head in her lap. In some places ropes are thrown over to bind the living to the dead, or long bamboos are bent down upon them both, and the ends held firm by attending Brahmins. Sometimes she is left untied and loose. All is now ready: her eldest son, if she have one—if not, the nearest male relative—stands ready to discharge the cruel office of executioner by igniting the pile at the four corners quickly. The whole structure instantly blazes up, and the poor lady is at once enveloped in a sheet of flame. Musical instruments strike up, the Brahmins vociferously chant, the crowd shout “Hari-bal! Hari-bal!” [call on Hari—a name of the god Vishnu,] so that her moans or shrieks are drowned in the infernal din raised around her.

Just at this period of the proceedings is the dreadful moment when woman's courage has so often failed her, and nature has proved too strong for fanaticism. If not at once overwhelmed or suffocated, even though she knows that her attempt to escape will be resisted as a duty by her own friends, who would regard her as an outcast, the victim not unfrequently, when left untied, springs off the burning mass among the spectators and piteously pleads for life. Alas! it is too late; there is no mercy for her now! She is at once struck down by a sword or a billet of wood, and flung back again on the pile, her own son having been known to be one of the most forward to tie her hands and feet for this purpose.

The writer remembers to have heard of a case at Benares, where the poor woman was actually saved by a sudden and singular